SO. I’ve been on the road two weeks now and things are going along quite nicely. I am so very happy with this cast, we all complement each other very well as performers and people and it is a wonderful breath of fresh air after an eventful summer. I don’t know if it’s the closeness of touring with a show, or just the fact that I have been so lucky to have casts of amazing, amazing people the two tours I’ve been on, but I’ve been pretty damn lucky.
me and my wig, Gertrude...Trudy when she looks good, Gertch when she looks like crap Let me tell you a bit about the show. It is all Irving Berlin music, a review but with plot- so more of a review-sical, telling the stories of how many lives a piano can touch with Berlin’s music. It starts in 1910 and goes through 1950’s, and the character archetypes remain the same throughout the show. The show has six people in it, three couples. There is the young Judy/Mickey type, the Ginger/ Fred type, and the Ethel Merman/ whoever played opposite Ethel Merman authority figure male type. Kind of like the babies, the kids, and the parents. I play the ballzy broad parent. I go from singing “God Bless America” a la Kate Smith to singing “Suppertime” about my husband who is lost in the war to doing Lucille Ball-like comedy, an incredibly challenging, thrilling, wonderful arc to get to do every single night onstage. The audiences really love the show, many of them grew up with the music and so it’s kind of nostalgic. It is in a sense for me too being a history major and also as an artist who was most definitely born in the wrong time period.
Some highlights of the show so far have been: opening in Brooklyn so all of my friends could come- JCS 08er’s included, singing God Bless America in NC for Kate Smith’s niece, who was very wonderful and complementary, dragging my cast along to Chapel Hill to party with my college friends when we played Durham and making them eat pokie sticks!!!!!! And go to Top of the Hill, going out for a cast drink with our casting director who drove all the way up to see us, and singing Karaoke at a very interesting bar in West Virginia.
I am also a red head in this show. We went through several wig options, the first of which made me look like a certain recent Mama Rose in Gypsy when I had to wear a very similar dress to that of “Rose’s Turn” for “ Suppertime.” However, we ended up going with a more muted auburn color, which let me tell you, it is interesting maintaining a wig on the road. Thank God for my amazingly talented friend Ashley who is in charge of wardrobe and helping me tremendously with Gert.
We bought a pumpkin yesterday. His name is Herman, he will be traveling the country under each of our care and we will be photographing him in random locations throughout the continental United States until he starts to smell. But regardless, his first trip with us was to the movies yesterday.
So, we’ve hit up NC, PA, WV, and Brooklyn so far. We’ll be heading down South soon, then to Midwest, Cali, and ending in FL. December 1st we play my hometown!!!! YAYYY!!!
Off to Gettysburg I go-and I’m FINALLY going on a ghost tour after all these years of begging my friends!!!!
LOVE YOU ALL
me
ps read more about the tour at www.iloveapianothemusical.com
and here's a review from Charleston: http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/200909270886
No comments:
Post a Comment